From: Eris Weaver of FrogSong Cohousing
Sent: November 23, 2005
Subject: Report back from Facilitation Workshop
Many of you have asked me how the workshop was; it was a very FULL three
days, and I am just now starting to feel settled back in. I have been
writing up some of my observations and reflections about the weekend as
part of my digesting process and thought I would share them with you.
One of the goals of this workshop is to foster networking among
facilitators in Bay Area cohousing communities; this was also one of my
personal interests in attending. I made many connections that have the
potential to grow into both personal relationships for me as an
individual, and ongoing relationships between our community and others.
There are already a couple of people who I wouldn't hesitate to call if
I thought we needed some outside facilitation and I wouldn't be
surprised if a couple of them called me!
The workshop was a great blend of teaching, discussion, and experiential
activities. Besides all the work done with the workshop participants,
there were three 2-hour meetings of the entire Pleasant Hill community
for us to guest facilitate. They chose the topics in advance. Our group
got an extensive briefing on the history of the issue, and spent a
couple hours planning and de-briefing each meeting.
I got the chance to facilitate four hours worth of meetings with a group
to which I did not belong - a first for me! And while doing so, I had
Tree - a teacher/facilitator/mentor for whom I have tremendous respect -
right at my side for assistance and fairly immediate feedback. She
would at times jump in if she felt I was going a wrong direction, and
did it in a way that felt comfortable and non-critical; at one point I
called for a break in order to do a quick consult. As I have been going
through my job search over the past year, I have thought about doing
some kind of facilitating/consulting and this gave me a taste of what
that might be like. Tree will continue to be a resource for discussing
possible directions this might take me.
Since I am not a member of Pleasant Hill and thus had neither an
emotional investment in the issue nor any history with the members, I
was able to completely focus on process rather than content in a way
that was different from doing it in my home community. I also was freed
from the constant need to self-evaluate for fairness - is X really
talking too long, or am I just thinking that because I'm still annoyed
with him about something that happened yesterday?
I felt really pleased with the outcome of the two meetings I
facilitated. The community experienced significant movement on an issue
about which they had been stuck for a long time, and a couple of
dissenters were finally understood by the rest of the group for the
first time (rather than perceived as standing in the way).
Earlier in my facilitation "career," the end of a difficult meeting
would find me exhausted to the point of tears. Saturday, as I closed
each of the meetings, I found myself tearing up in a different way - I
felt very full of grace, satisfaction, and gratitude at being allowed to
serve their community in that way. During the meetings themselves, I was
in that place of flow, in the zone, whatever you want to call it - that
space where I complete am one with whatever it is I'm doing. I have
been there while facilitating before, but hadn't expected to go there
Saturday given that I was a bit nervous! It is newer for me to
experience flow in this sort of situation (facilitating or teaching) -
it has usually been more accessible to me in contexts that are more
physical (dancing, surfing, sex, etc.).
Looking for the places where there is commonality - this was a big theme
throughout the weekend. Somehow it is easier to see from the outside -
the group felt like they were very polarized and far apart, but as I
looked at what they were saying I could see that they were much closer
to agreement than they thought they were. This experience has hopefully
sharpened my eyes for this kind of noticing. Another thing that I worked
on more consciously was summarizing and reflecting back to the group
throughout the discussions, more frequently than I tend to do naturally.
Many of the people in Pleasant Hill were really frustrated and just
plain tired of dealing with the whole issue and what they really needed
was MOVEMENT, consensus on some kind of plan that might not be perfect
but would be an improvement over the current situation. Tree pushed ME
to push THEM a little faster and harder in order to accomplish this. I
will keep this one in my pocket for those times when it feels like we've
been just talking something to death without actually trying to move
toward some agreement.
I'm sure there is more learning that I don't have access to on a
conscious level right now, but will rise up when a situation calls for
it. (I will be sharing all of this in greater depth with our
Facilitation committee, for sure!) It was a great weekend and I am still
intending to do the whole series.
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